I can't
by Bleached Raven
Summary: Warning: Depression theme and suicide It's not their fault he is alone
1. Part 1

I'm feeling really angsty I'm sorry

I don't own Danny Phantom

* * *

The dim lit room of Lancer's first period there sits a 14 year old boy in turmoil. No one can see it; it lays where no one could hope to see, to understand.

The video on Fitzgerald's life plays on the screen, information on his life emitting from the speakers, he doesn't hear a word of it, this worksheet on the video isn't due until tomorrow anyway.

 _You know they don't really like you._ The damnable voice purrs in my head.

Of course they do, they choose to be my friends. I brought them together, remember? I've been friends with Sam since kindergarten just like in a cliche love story and Tucker has been my friend since 4th grade when he moved to the area. Those two never talked to each other until my 11th birthday party.

 _You think that means anything now? Can't you see it, they want to get away._

You're wrong.

 _Then why do they hang out without you?_

They're allowed to have their own lives.

 _Even though it means leaving you in the dust, even though you know they only stay around because of the guilt they feel._

What guilt.

 _Come on. You don't need to be NASA smart for this one._

I told them it isn't there fault.

 _You really think those meaningless words will stop them from pitying you for what they did to you? News flash, kid. You're_ _ **Dead**_ _because of them._

I'm not dead.

 _Really? This fight again._

I have a pulse. I'm not dead.

 _You are half ectoplasm, ectoplasm kills living cells._

I'm not dead, not yet.

 _So you're just dying._

It's better than being dead.

 _You're an idiot._

Noted.

 _It's a shame they fight so well together. Almost as if they don't need the dying kid that's way over his head._

Stop it.

 _Stop what._

They care about me.

 _Then why so you sit in that forsaken bathroom at night stitching yourself up when you have more blood lost then kept._

They don't need to see that.

 _So you just deserve to sit alone and suffer._

I didn't say that. The bell rings, I go to the bathroom, math can wait.

 _They deserve to be happy while you rot away, keeping everything at bay that could leave more than a bump or bruise. You can't be happy while the get into honor classes and you can't get a C on a English test because you spent the last week hunting down a rampaging ghost?_

I didn't-

 _They hate you._

….What?

 _They hate what you are. They hate having to see you. They have having to be near you, see you, hear your voice._

You're wrong.

 _You know I'm not. You can be out fighting for you're afterlife and they will be watching a movie in Sam's super basement happy and carefree._

Because I don't get them involved.

 _You think they would come if they saw? If they knew you needed help. Face it, they are content to watch you drown in your own blood and tears._

It's not like that.

 _How long can you deny me, deny the truth._

As long as I have to.

 _So you admit._

They haven't left me yet. That counts right? I'm shaking, when did that start. I brush my arm against my face, I'm crying too.

I leave the bathroom, instead I sit on the roof. Just me and the open sky. It's sunny today, warm, around may time. School will be letting out soon.

I have friends. My friends like me. They won't leave me.

It's not my fault I am the way I am. I'm not even talking the half dead part.

I'm shy and annoying, not many like me. I've been picked on for most of my school life but I stand up for those who won't stand up for themselves.

It's not my fault I'm like this. My friends like me the way I am.

Even when I can't hang out with them and they hang out with just themselves and then they post pictures of the two of them having fun and I have to make up some excuse of why I'm not with them. Sometimes it's actually true. Like when I'm grounded, I try not to go out except for when it's a ghost fight.

They can't help that this is what I need to do. I can't help that they can be together when I can't.

I can't help if they don't spend time with me.

I can't help that I'm alone.

I can't-

The boy lays crumpled on the concrete. He couldn't survive that fall.

Even if he wanted too.


	2. Part 2

**Part 2**

 _He's gone._

They just couldn't grasp it. It isn't real, it's not right. It just.. It can't be.

But it is, they know that of course, after all the scene has been playing in their minds for a seemingly endless amount of time. So many witnessed it, screamed at him to get down, to think for a minute. Even those that tormented his waking days didn't want this.

His eyes, so dull, so dead. He was dead for a long time, at least inside, a walking corpse among the mostly living.

A video, that's how everyone knew that no one had shoved him, had moved him to do it. He appeared on the roof and walked with purpose for the first time in so long, each step knowing exactly what it was doing; strength filling his very being. However, it was so disconnected, if you could make out his face- which some with higher tech cameras and closer to the building could- it was hollow, empty.

The life that had once filled the boy's beautiful blue eyes had dulled and darkened. Sunken in with exhausted bag underneath.

He climbed the safety railing.

 _Stop.._

He looked forward with unseeing eyes,

 _Please, don't.._

His arms raise on either side looking as if he was a bird about to take flight,

 _StOp.._

He leans forward so slowly, never breaking his blind gaze to the sky,

 _ **STOP!**_

His crumpled body lays in a broken heap.

He was human, too young to have truly lived but old enough to know pain. So much pain.

I've watched this video more times than is likely healthy and no matter how much I try I can't stop the person on the screen from falling, I can't do anything.

The days to come are disjointed and feel more like a surreal dream than a memory. After the sirens came and went, the declaration he was actually gone, we who knew didn't give up hope so fast. He could still come back and half the student body expected him to, to haunt them for their wrong doing towards such a pure and innocent soul.

But the day never came.

We waited and we waited, days turned to weeks turned to months, we couldn't keep hoping; it hurt too much.

Sidney Poindexter came to visit Casper high two and a half months after…. It happened.

He told us, though we could barely listen, that a "power" of his - one that he hates with passion- is that he can sense when someone here is being hurt like he was. It's how he got out the first time. He felt the pain of our friend, our family. Sidney wouldn't tell us how it felt in the moment of it happening and the moments leading to it. I need to respect him but he is-was my family damn it. I need to know.

I've tried, I have tried so hard to bring him back, I pleaded with Clockwork, I've begged to Desiree; no one will do it, no one can.

His sworn enemies have made a memorial around his grave. Gifts of all sorts: Model rockets, telescopes, there's a moon rock, hell there's a broken toaster. So many flowers you could fill a greenhouse, Earth and ghost plants alike. I guess not even they can wish death upon him.

It won't bring him back, nothing can. His parents are broken, disheartened. They blame themselves, after all, why didn't they see it sooner? Why did nobody see it sooner? He always wore long sleeves are bracelets covering his arms. Underneath his skin told a story of self hatred and loathing, an attempt to fix a mangled mind. We always thought the scars were from ghost fights but the parallel lines running down his inner wrists told us otherwise.

His soft skin is bruised from being knocked into walls and shoved into lockers, he learned to cover the marks but the mental damage was not so easily disposed of.

He was so sweet, even when he knew it would mean trouble for him he would stand up for others in need, other children that needed a hero. In the end he had saved more than he could ever imagine.

Why couldn't he see that? Why couldn't he see we still needed him!

But that's just it, we were so damn selfish that we couldn't see what we had done to him. He needed someone, and where were we when he needed us so badly? Having fun without him. Those happy fun times without him there have turned sour, but we stay close; we're all we have now.

Our parents don't understand us, they may know loss but they can't understand this. It's eating away at me, drowning me. I don't think I have ever cried so much before in my life. The smallest thing will set me off. A wandering thought, a small reminder, the stars, the places, the _everything._

You can't heal this wound, the slightest thing will tear the gash Death has left on our soul right back open.

It gets easier in time but you can never really recover, you just learn how to cope with the grief.

I close my eyes and he's there. He haunts me in my mind but it isn't his fault, its mine. I'll see him there and I will get so happy, he returned! He's okay.. Now it will all be okay.. It shifts. The eyes that used to reflect the morning sky are those dead eyes from that day. He is bruised, _he's broken_. I will wake with tears in my eyes and a scream in my throat, not quite making it past my lips, dying on my tongue.

I've seeked the comfort of the others before, but the soothing comfort of them is replaced by my heavy heart, by the grief and anguish. Those who have lost someone before knows what I'm talking about.

I just want him back.

Just come back.

Things will be different this time, just please, don't leave me.

There was so much we still had yet to do, that _he_ had yet to do; and now he never will. He never got his license, never graduated high school, he never got to be among the stars he loved so much. All his hopes, all his dreams, they will never be.

The tribute we had at school was shocking. I saw people that never even knew him cry and grieve. I saw those who hurt him cry, I saw regret. I didn't have the energy to be angry with any of them, it was so much so fast. I was, of course, angry with them at a point, I was furious with them. How DARE they pretend to care! They stand their and _lie_ , tarnish what little we have left of him. But even that fire has gone out, they may have just been kids like him and while it just no excuse for what they have done, they are just human.

Danny was just human.

 _Human_.

So fragile, so confusing and strange and wonderful. I can't explain him in words, I could never get it right even if I had hundreds of lifetimes to try. I don't want to ruin him. He could make you laugh and smile even when the sky was gray and bleak and you had just received some of the worst possible news, then he would stay with you and make sure you got through it. He would make sure you were okay no matter the cost.

It was never himself first, any one else would come before him because he believed they needed it more; Or maybe he just didn't want to focus on himself because he would see how fragmented and splintered he truly was.

I'm not sure what time it is at this point, I'm sure I should try to sleep. I probably have to go to school. If you're still here, I'll thank you. I'm sure he would appreciate it.

I just want him to come home.

I can't do this without him.

 _I can't._

 _ **End**_


End file.
